Lost

How do you find yourself when you are lost?

After spending half a life with someone and having that relationship end can leave you lost. So much of your life becomes entwined around said person. Your traditions, habits and ways of living become wrapped around a life external to your own. And when that ends, all patterns of behaviour become reminders of what was lost.

In such a situation, how do you find yourself again?

This is exactly where I find myself: lost.

The good news is the unique opportunity this affords me. There are a multitude of paths in front of me. I would perhaps say that the options range from extremely unhealthy reactions all the way to neutral and beyond to healthy. Bitterness or over correcting could be one extreme. Bitterness is perhaps the easiest path. I will admit to anger. That is only natural. Being rejected by one you have loved for so long is a hard thing to process. Bitterness is an understandable reaction. An easy reaction. However, where does it get you other than alone and bitter? Then there is the over correction. Yes, I am single now. Yes, that allows me to look into all of the new flavours of love and sex I have never sampled. And yes, of course the desire to sample something new is tempting. But to do so merely represents an easy out. Another form of being lost in someone or something else's ability to create the sensation of being fulfilled. Drugs, love and sex and the drugs of love and sex cannot be the foundation to independent happiness.

I need to stand on my own two feet.

The other end of the spectrum is a truer form of health. Health from within and without. Health in the form of being comfortable in my own skin by myself and for myself. Health in the body, in shape, strength and flexibility. Free from dependency to anything external.

Realistically on any given day I fluctuate between both extremes. And that is OK. This will be a lifelong process of getting from the dark place to somewhere light. I've seen that darkness and I know, I 100% completely know, that this is not where I want to be. I want health and I choose health.

Here is another however, health is not easy when you have to live. Living sometimes calls for unhealthy choices. This requires the mortal balancing act of living and being healthy. Up to this point in my life I have not exactly been good at balance. Life has always been a zero sum game for me. This is another lesson to be learned late in life. How to ease off the accelerator and how to gently brake. 

I am lost. I am no longer afraid of saying it out loud. I don't know where I am going. Previously this terrified me. I had a vision of my future. I knew where I was going to be in 20 years and who was going to be there with me. Now everything is a mist, wrapped in a fog, seen through broken glasses. First the lack of vision terrified me. Now, I see it for what it is: it will be the consequence of the work I put in today. 

If I sit back and let life happen, life will happen, and no complaints can be made as to the quality or quantity of that life. However, the work I put in today for the life I want tomorrow, will lead to the life of my design and not someone else's. 

As with all things, people are unlikely to see the work, only the result.

To wrap up, lost is a question of perspective. Knowing where you are and where you're going is a question of perspective. Each of these depends on the telescope, microscope, glasses or sunglasses you are looking through. Maybe they are rose tinted or even blacked out. All I know is that by a process of deduction I know what I need to leave behind and what is the general direction that I need to blindly grope towards, regardless of scraped and bruised knees as at times I may need to crawl before I can walk and then run there. Loneliness is less scary now, as I know I need to walk this path by myself. At least for now.

March 17th is only St Patrick's day

When you are with the same person for close on twenty years, so many things start to attain nearly mythical levels of meaning. Certain songs will forever be connected with certain holidays or certain activities. For example, if I hear Slightly Stoopid, I am immediately transported back to road trips with her. Whether to the caravan in Durban for seaside getaways, or perhaps to the Rhino and Lion park for an afternoon of blunting and animal watching. Or Christmas time, Die Hard and Home Alone. Now, those things are all so thoroughly connected to her, to memories with her and the good times we had together. Back when we were still in love.

Ten years ago on St Patrick's day we got married. In front of friends and family. We stood up, expressed our feelings and promised to be with each other for the rest of our lives. That did not go as planned. March 17, 2022 should have been our 10 year anniversary. I know that means nothing. What difference does it make if a marriage ends after 9 years, 10 years, 2 years or 20 years. If it ends, it ends for a reason, good or bad. Still, it feels shit. It would have been nice to have celebrated our 10 year anniversary. We did not.

Now I need to take all these things back that I once shared so deeply and intimately with her. Slightly Stoopid for starters. I know it is petty and small but they are my favourite band for summer and new memories need to be formed to build up on top of the old memories. In order to begin this long and painful process I went away for St Patrick's day. Because that is all that March 17 is now. St Patrick's day. Nothing else.

So I went to Cordoba, saw old stuff and revelled in all the things she would have considered boring. Archaeology museums, old buildings and ancient history. Joyful stuff really. I lost myself in La Mezquita, overawed by the beauty of the architecture, I sat down on a pew and had a thorough ugly cry. I spent that night watching football in an Irish pub with some random German bloke. After the football, it turned into a bit of a party. Filled with youngsters. It was weird. It was fun. Young people are weird. Young people are fun. It was pleasantly refreshing. 

The following day I went to Granada. What a fucking amazing city. I met up with old friends. We drank. We spoke. I shared. They gave me support. It was so fantastically cathartic. I then found myself in another Irish pub, watching a different game of football, after a full day of seeing old stuff and ancient buildings. Winning. After the football my friends took me on a tapas tour and we went to a selection of fantastically hole in the wall variations. It was brilliant. The following morning included an Irish fry up back in the Irish pub before a 3 hour drive with a stranger in a Blah Blah car in Spanish. 

After that brief and momentary escape, I was back in my apartment. In Seville. Still kind of lost. I found myself confronted by the feelings that came after the feelings of progress and growth. On Monday I asked her if we could talk. I need closure and I felt that I was finally in a place where I was emotionally strong enough to speak to her without losing my shit for the next few days. I had every intention of having a calm and mature conversation with her. All I wanted to know was when she had stopped loving me. A simple enough question.

I was not ready for the answer.

Half the problem was Facebook's fucking memories bullshit. An endless list on March 17 of happy memories. Romantic adventures, special meals and amazing moments, all complete with special heart felt messages of undying love.

How did we go from those memories to these memories? I needed to know, so I had to ask. I was not ready to hear what I heard. Knowing that a person you love dearly has stopped loving you is difficult. Hearing how and when they stopped is nearly impossible to take. 

I fully acknowledge that I am not an easy person. I think too much, I obsess too much, I have a lot of bitterness inside and I have a lot of anger inside. A lot of this is down to the fact that deep inside I am an idealist. I have ideals for what I want the world to be. And the world is not those things. And this makes me angry and bitter. Add to that the nature of the somewhat toxic upbringing that men my age grew up with in hard environments like post Apartheid South Africa. Men could be angry or happy and that was it. Any other emotions are weakness and men cannot be weak or vulnerable. I own that. I acknowledge I need to work on these things.

However, to hear that some of your most hard coded flaws are the reason behind the failure of your relationship is hard to take. Hearing from her how she was terrified of me hurts. A lot. Add to that, learning how far back in time the love had died hurts. I am more than embarrassed to admit that I lost control of my emotions. Rage took control. I might have raised my voice just a little. And in so doing, proved her right. I don't want to be so far out of control of my feelings that one moment of difficulty can lead to complete loss of self control. This is not healthy.  

All I really wanted to know is how. How was she able to fall out of love and move on? Maybe knowing this can help me fall out of love with her and move on. I do want to move on. Yes, there is the complex baggage of our dogs. I miss them so very much. But, I know they are gone. They are no longer mine. They are hers. The house is hers. The memories are hers.

But, you know what? St Patrick's day is not. Nor is Slightly Stoopid.

It starts with the small things, but those built up on top of each other, become big things.

I don't have closure. Not yet. I still carry a huge amount of pain. And I am still nowhere near in control of my emotions.

And all of that is OK. This is still just the beginning. I feel bad for blowing up at her, and I know I should not have done that. As much as she has hurt me, I still love her and she does not deserve having me rage at her. She can't help the fact she was terrified of a bitter and angry partner.

And that is why I need to write. I do not want to be bitter or angry. I want to move on. I want to keep walking this path away from being shit and towards being awesome. Some days I get lost and go in the wrong direction. Other days I make no progress at all. Overall, I am bit by bit getting a clearer sense of self and a clearer idea of where to go from here.

One way of doing this is by acknowledging the memories, holding on to them, remembering the good, learning from the bad while still being open and ready for new memories instead of hiding away for fear of new pain, new rejection and new loss. I cannot hide away from a new life because my old life hurt me so bad that I am now terrified that all lives end in pain. While all lives end, how they end is up to us, the participants.

Getting Better

"There is no time frame for healing"

These were the words given to me by my friend, Bruce, King of Chickens. He has always been one of the wisest people I know. I recall our mega baked poolside chats, young and stupid adolescents, brains warped and twisted by an apothecary's worth of substances. When we were younger, Bruce and I and our friends pushed reality to snapping point. For many of us, reality snapped. Others went out Friday and never came home Saturday.

Bruce and myself are among those few that made it through. So when shit happens, speak to those who have seen some shit in their time. Bruce has certainly seen some shit.

I have taken his words to heart. He is 100% correct. I was trying to rush things. I wanted to be on the other side of this hurt, pain and heart ache. I just forgot that you need to feel the pain in order to overcome the pain, to learn from the pain, and hopefully, maybe, just maybe, actually grow from the pain and become a better person.

Here we are, a week before a date I was dreading and I am taking the power back. I am walking the path towards getting better. Spend twenty years with a person and life becomes a series of important dates: for some, it's Valentine's day, for others, anniversaries, maybe birthdays, even first kisses or possibly other firsts. The year gets chopped up into sections moving to or from one of these special dates, dates with significance attached as consequence of time and memory shared with another.

Saint Patrick's day will once again be Saint Patrick's day, and nothing else. We almost made it to ten, but we just couldn't get over that line. Oh well, shit happens.

It's spring time, things are getting better, and I am taking back those dates, those songs, those memories and those feelings, all those things that I had once shared for nearly two decades. After such a long time, significance is applied to so many things. I wanted to just erase it all, as all of it triggered the black spread of pain. But healing takes time. You cannot simply amnesia your way back to health.

So fuck it. I will take back Easy Star All Stars. Yes, they will remind me of road trips along the coast, smoke out sessions, late nights on the couch and all the good times. I will take back all the music that was the long and wonderful soundtrack of us. I will take back all those abstract acts and moments of significance, I will give new meaning, attach new memories, not to replace, or forget, but simply to grow. 

I can no longer let the bitterness, the depression and the heart ache drive me. Yes, there is no time frame, but still, forward momentum calls me.

Today's post was written to Easy Star All Stars cover of the Beatles Getting Better.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cGLd6CPdbb4&list=OLAK5uy_nxhXTdz2BG01ZWaJnzyj7E345ixS89cVQ&index=4